Plain Dealer file photoA motorist is stopped by a state trooper at Ohio 3 and I-71.

Updated at 6:30 p.m.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A simple educated guess that a motorist is speeding is all the evidence a police officer needs to write an ironclad speeding ticket, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.

In a 5-to-1 ruling, the court said an officer's "unaided visual estimation of a vehicle's speed" is strong enough to support a ticket and conviction. A radar speed detector, commonly used by patrolmen, is not needed, the court concluded.

"Independent verification of the vehicle's speed is not necessary to support a conviction for speeding," assuming the officer has been trained and certified by the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy or similar organization, Justice Maureen O'Connor wrote for the court's majority.

The court's ruling, in a Summit County traffic case, leaves little chance for drivers to argue their way out of tickets when it is their word against the officers' and nothing more.

"In light of this ruling I guess we don't need radar guns anymore, we don't need laser. We might as well throw all that technology out the window," said attorney John Kim, who argued the case on behalf of motorist Mark Jenney.

"And now a police officer based on his own human biases can stand on the side of the road and write all the tickets he wants," Kim said. "So, we have taken Draconian steps backwards."

Justice Terrence O'Donnell, who wrote a dissenting opinion, was also troubled by the majority's assertion that a trained police officer cannot possibly be wrong. O'Donnell said just because an officer says someone was speeding should not alone be good enough for a conviction.

"I would assert that a broad standard as postulated by the majority. . . eclipses the role" of a judge or jury to reject an officer's testimony, O'Donnell said, especially if the testimony is "found not to be credible (or) could in some instances be insufficient to support a conviction."

It is rare for officers to issue a ticket on observation alone, said Ted Hart, a spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General's office, which operates the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy.

"Typically an officer would observe someone that appears to be speeding and then use radar or laser to confirm it," Hart said.

That is the policy of the Ohio Highway Patrol, whose primary duty is traffic enforcement. Troopers are not allowed to stop motorists for speeding based on a visual estimate.

"It works in conjunction with radar," said patrol spokeswoman Lindsay Komlanc. "And only after confirmation of radar clocked speed would they then pull a motorist over to issue a ticket."

Justices Paul Pfeifer, Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, Judith Ann Lanzinger and Robert Cupp joined O'Connor for the majority. O'Donnell disagreed. And Chief Justice Eric Brown, who joined the court in May, did not participate on this case.

The ruling resulted from Jenney challenging a speeding ticket he was given in 2008 by Copley police officer Christopher R. Santimarino.

Jenney appealed the ticket to the Ninth District Court of Appeals, which upheld the conviction. Jenney then appealed to the Supreme Court.

The circumstances of this casewerenot clear cut.

Santimarino said he observed Jenney speeding in a black SUV on Ohio 21and later estimated he was driving at 73 mph. The speed limit on the highway was 60.

After making his visual estimate, the officer said he then checked his radar gun for confirmation. But the radar read 82 or 83 mph, Santimarino testified.

Santimarino said he decided to write Jenney a ticket for 79 mph -- closer to what the radar calculated instead of his own estimate.

But Kim, Jenney's attorney, argued that Santimarino was not qualified to operate the radar gun because the officer could not produce a certificate proving he was trained to use it or explain the two different readings.

That was not good enough for Jenney, who insisted he was not exceeding the speed limit. Jenney also said he was driving in the right lane of the highway, not left lane as Santimarino indicated, and suggested the officer flagged the wrong vehicle.

Kim questioned the officer's ability to visually calculate speed. Santimarino, a Copley patrolman since 1995, said he was trained at the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy where officers have to be able to visually calculate speed within a few miles per hour of the posted speed limit to be certified.

"I think this ruling stinks," Kim said. "The court agreed he was incompetent to use radar but said he is competent to stand on the highway and visually estimate speed. This is ridiculous."

Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray praised the ruling. His office argued the case on behalf of the Barberton court. In a court brief, Cordray said the case should never have risen above the lower court.

"If a trial court finds a trained officer's visual estimate of a vehicle's speed to be credible based on the totality of the circumstances," Cordray argued, then "this court should defer to those fact-bound determinations."

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